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Refunding an Xbox Live Annual Renewal Fee?
craigandthem is curious about the following: "Recently, I was going over my credit card statement, and noticed a charge I didn't remember making. After investigating, I determined that it was an auto-renewal for my Xbox Live account (for an Xbox that hasn't worked in months). I called to have the fee refunded, and Microsoft refused. They informed me that since it had been longer than 60 days from when my account was renewed, I was not eligible for a refund. The problem lies in that they didn't charge my credit card until December 26, despite renewing my account on November 15. I feel that this was done to increase the odds that I'd only be aware of the charge after it was too late to have reversed. They also claim I had fair warning I was going to be charged, since they sent me an email detailing my upcoming renewal. The email was sent to an old university account, which was de-activated after I graduated, and therefore never received. Have any fellow Slashdot readers received similar treatment, and if so, were you able to recover your money? Legally, is it my obligation to keep my Xbox Live information up to date to avoid this dilemma?"
At least for things not done in person. With a credit card you can simply call your company and contest the charges. Maybe enough people doing that will send a message.
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
Don't be surprised by anything on your credit card statement. Check them at least once a week online or by phone. Or every day if you use your card a lot.
Whenever you see something you don't recognize (or in this case, didn't expect), immediately, or the next morning, call the responsible party (Microsoft). Do what you can to resolve the issue.
If you can't resolve the issue, because of *your* screwup (which might be the case, since Microsoft made the rules pretty clear I think), then too bad.
But if you still think you have a "case", immediately *WRITE* the credit card company a concise letter describing the problem. There are usually instructions on the back of the statement.
I have found that most of these things are quickly resolved by the credit card company. The merchants do not like chargebacks or investigations from the credit card companies and will solve the problem pretty quick.
In your situation, you *may* get results if you insist, calling several times over a few days, talking to different people, and generally being firm. But if you don't, you can't really press the issue because you didn't act immediately.
This is really not an issue with Microsoft or the Xbox service. It happens with anybody that wants your money.
Be sure to read all your agreements, and if they have deadlines, put them in your calendar! (i.e., Xbox auto-renews in 30 days, 15 days, tomorrow).
Good luck!
Take your Xbox...put it on the floor next to your TV. Turn it on (may I suggest "Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball"?!?!). Take a bath.
Come back when you're all wet. Take a sheet rock saw and start sawing away at the Xbox's power cord while you're all wet.
Soon, the cord will fray, and it will electrocute you. Now you're dead! This is a good thing, because you're no longer bound by the laws of time/space.
Go back in time and develop Cinnamon Rice Krispies instead of Cocoa Krispies. Then leave a sheet rock saw under your couch so that your future self will be able to use it to kill himself, setting you free.
If you follow these easy instructions, the Xbox will be free of all demons! And it will stay crunchy in milk!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Unfortunately I'm guessing it is, though I've never looked at the XBox agreement contract in particular. It's just that ToS agreements tend to thoroughly cover all such bases. For example, when you have a Paypal account you "waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws, and that you may not issue a chargeback for anything you purchase using your credit card and PayPal account" (or...at least according to paypalsucks.com). Though, I'll admit I tend to just press "I Agree" and not worry about it; if they actually abused such contracts consumers would revolt...right?
As a couple people have suggested, challenge the charge through your credit card company. You'll have to double-check your credit card usage agreement, but for most US cards, you have 60 days from the first bill the charge appears on to challenge something.
Once it's been challenged, it is up to the vendor (Microsoft) to verify with the credit card company that you really did authorize the charge.
In most cases, this won't happen, you'll never have to pay the bill, and it will go away.
I don't have an Xbox or a Live account, but here is what I would do.
1. Submit a Better Business complaint in from the website www.bbb.org
2. Dispute this fee with your credit card company. Explain to them everything you just told us.
3. Sit back and watch the 2 big companies battle it out.
A company simply can not charge you for services you no longer need. Just because it's their policy to charge you doens't mean that it was legal or even that it was morally right. Once you involve the BBB into something that is questionable they seem to make the company turn itself around.
I used to work for U.S. Bank (in a non-technical capacity), and there is something called a "charge-back."
A charge-back is basically where the credit card company refunds a charge to a customer by withholding (current or future) funds from a merchant. Credit card companies hold a surprisingly large amount of power over merchants, even one such as MS.
The way a charge-back works is a customer tells the credit card issuer that they are disputing a charge, gives the reason for the dispute, and states that they have tried in good faith to resolve the dispute with the merchant but have been unsuccesful.
The credit card company will review your information, and more than likely, issue a credit to your next statement.
Look for a "Fraud / Lost or Stolen Card" number on the back of your card, and give them a call. If that call center doesn't handle those issues they can direct you quickly to who can.
When you talk to the right person, be rational, be reasonable, and don't ask for Gates' head on a stick sharpened on both ends. Simply ask them to charge the X-Box subscription back to MS because you were billed for a service you never received, and MS refuses to come to an amicable resolution.
It sounds like you have a pretty solid case. Good luck!
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Either way, when you entered in the access code, postal address, email address, and CC # the Live! system put up a big full screen text window on your TV that said (paraphrasing), "Your account is good for X days from today. If you don't cancel your account before then it will be automatically renewed and your CC will be charged."
They then warned you of the impending CC charge via email. That you didn't update your email address with them isn't their fault, it's yours.
Bottom line - You agreed to the Terms of Service. You agreed to allow Microsoft to charge your CC for a yearly renewal, you didn't cancel by the date specified, and you didn't provide Microsoft with current contact information.
Next time you should remember when you enter into a revolving service contract that the bill will come due at some point unless you take responsibility for cancelling the service if you no longer need or want it.
Whenever someone charges your credit card without authorization, you have the recourse of telling your credit card company to deny the charges. They'll start an investigation in which the charger will have to prove (to some measure of proof which probably varies from cc company to cc company) that you requested the charge and that the services/goods were rendered/delivered.
The few times I've done this (with American Express) I've gotten the charges refunded with very little work on my part. YMMV, but it has a good shot of working, and it puts the onus on MS Live to get the money rather than on you.
If you're real anti-MS, you can probably call your Better Business Bureau and get them involved first, since it sounds to me like you have a pretty reasonable case against them.
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
I got burned in a similar way by Gamespot complete. I joined a year ago. I got at least once a month spams from them which I eventually just started deleting without reading. Then one month I had a weird charge on my card. If I recall correctly, it didn't even say gamespot on it and I had to call the number on the bill to figure it out (I may be misremembering that part).
Anyway apparently one of those spams they sent me was a reminder that they were going to autorenew my membership (which I had forgotten i had even had). So I called them up to complain and they were all "Did you read the terms of service?" well, yes -- A YEAR AGO. The operator game me additude. I hung up called my credit card comapany told them i didn't want to pay that charge. Blingo, charge was erased from my bill.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I work for an ISP, and that's basically how we handle billing disputes. We're a bit more lenient if a customer hasn't used their account in a couple months and would like a refund on the current bill; however, companies can't call up and make sure that you would like to renew your subscription each month/year. If you didn't update your email address or phone number, and agreed to the TOS, your luck in getting a refund without being a jerk to billing is pretty much nil.
sigs are dumb.
If I have this straight, your argument is approximately as follows:
You: "Hey, I didn't use my wireless phone at all this month - why are you charging me for it?"
Phone company: "You initiated service with us, agreed to the service contract and set up auto-pay using your credit card number."
You: "But you never sent me a paper bill to my new address!"
Phone company: "Oh, so you moved without telling us? How were we supposed to send you the auto-bill receipts if you didn't tell us when you moved?"
You: "This fucking sucks! I'm going to post on Slashdot!"
Stop whining. You are responsible for your neglegence - not Microsoft. You *asked* them to charge you.
Moral of the story is: Don't buy shit you're not going to use, then act all suprised when you actually have to pay for it.
If this were a reoccurring fee with TiVo or Apple or a Linux company, I'd say that you had fair warning and it's your fault for not protecting your money. I'd say that these things happen from time to time and the best thing to do is to suck it up and learn from the experience.
But since this is Microsoft they have maliciously cheated you out of your money and you should do everything you can do to get it back. Call your credit card company and accuse them of fraud. Do it so that they don't extend their IE monopoly into the game console arena and so they'll give away all their source code under the GPL!
If this were some company that Slashdot wasn't predisposed to I'd probably have advice somewhere in the middle of those two answers.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
It's not fraud.
Find a license agreement (even if you have to go to a store that will let you read one). It's like a lot of services and automatically renews. On any service like this, once you sign up and pay, it is up to you to cancel. The fact that you didn't cancel it, give them an updated e-mail addy, or check your bill when it came in is your fault.
I wish I could say this is another cause of Microsoft giving customers the shaft, but I can't when you ignored your responsibilities.
I will say, as someone who tried MSN, that Microsoft does make it tough to cancel, often requiring passwords you may have forgotten, or specifically notifying them at least 60 days before renewal, but, again, most services automatically renew. It's their way of increasing income. A lot of services count on people forgetting to cancel accounts, which is what you did. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of accounts with only a small fraction forgetting to cancel their subscription, and you can see the profit can mount up for them.
I work for a major credit card processor, First National Merchant Solutions, but I don't usually handle chargebacks. I'm still at work though, so I asked a coworker who does.
You're probably curious about chargeback rights. This is where you talk to your bank, explain why you believe that charge wasn't fair or valid, and ask them to get your money back. I'm going to describe these chargeback rights.
"Merchant" means a business who is charging your card. "Cardholder" is you. "Issuer" is the bank that issued your card.
The merchant must have given you prior notice that they were going to bill you. I'm not familiar with the terms & conditions you agreed to, but they may have given you this notification when you signed up.
If you called and cancelled the service within a reasonable amount number of days before you were billed, and they still charged you, AND you haven't received any material goods or services from them, you can charge the sale back.
Also if you never received notification that they were going to charge your account again, you can charge the sale back.
You probably can't charge the sale back claiming that they never provided the goods or services you requested. They will probably claim that your account has been capable of logging in and accessing the service, so they will argue that meets their fulfillment obligations.
I'll refer you to my company's "Chargeback Case Studies" section of its web site. http://www.foomp.com -- click on "REFERENCE DESK" at the top center, then click "Fraud & Loss" at the fourth link down in the body of the page. This section of the site describes the common chargeback reasons, and gives a case study for each chargeback type. This list doesn't include all of the rare chargeback types out there, but it's most of the common ones.
Keep in mind you can't argue a chargeback case like a lawyer. You can't say you called him to cancel...and you already returned the merchandise...and you never received the merchandise...and you've never heard of this merchant before now. You must pick one reason and go with it. If you pick a weak chargeback reason and the chargeback is reversed, you may not get another chance to file another chargeback with a different reason. (You will probably be allowed to rebut the merchant's allegations, making this a 'second chargeback'.)
If you feel you're entitled to a chargeback (because you read about a chargeback case study very similar to your situation) but your bank insists you cannot charge the sale back, the bank may be in violation of Visa/Mastercard regulations. If you feel they are, complain to Visa or Mastercard. You could find out the bank was right all along -- or the bank could find out you were right. If the bank was in error, they could be fined by Visa/Mastercard or (in VERY extreme cases) have their rights to issue those cards revoked.
The opinions expressed above are mine, and not necessarily those of my employer. We are an "acquirer" -- we provide services to merchants, so we're used to helping businesses who are on the defending side of chargeback disputes. Acquirers don't usually go around giving customers advice anyway.
--Michael Spencer
Actually this just happened to me.
I noticed in December a charge on my CC from Microsoft Online Services. I was quite surprised as, like you, i had not used X-Box live for several months (read 8), and had expected to be involved in any sort of re-bill process (ie a message on the X-Box). The whole Live! sign up process was very difficult, with a whole heck of a lot of questions, and I was under the impression that they took down my CC only to confirm i was age for some of the content. I found it ludicris that I needed to give my CC# to the company whose service I had already paid for at the store...
I caught it quicker than you did, and called them in December and spoke to someone there (3 forwards and 20 minutes on hold later) who eventually relented and offered a refund. I waited over a month and saw nothing on my CC. So I called back on the 3rd, spoke to someone else who said that they had cancelled the service, I had a credit on my account, but they wern't actually planning on sending that refund to my card. After more haggling, more hold time etc, they agreed to refund my card.
All in all X-Box Live! was a difficult, expensive service to sign up for with unclear purchasing terms. I'm not happy with it, but I should have my money back soon....
paul reinheimer
That's a load of horse sh*t.
It's like how the gyms that require you to notify them in writing by snail mail to cancel your account. There's a reason why people have been taking them to court and winning, it's underhanded.
Unfortunately, it's not so easy to do something about. If you used a credit card (as opposed to a debit card), it should be relatively easy to get the charge cancelled, like mentioned in an earlier post. If not, stop by at your local court house and pick up a small claims form. Specify the amount as $70 (Xbox fee) + ~$100 (your time and effort coming to court), and most likely they'll refund it before the court date comes, or they won't even show up, which means you win by default. (It's not worth their money to fight it.)
Use the court system to your advantage, for once, and put them in the same positiion that they put small companies, i.e. the settlement is worth less than their legal fees... Total cost to you? Somewhere between $2 and $15
First off, call your credit card company/bank RIGHT NOW and dispute the charges. You'll probably be fine.
Legally speaking, he short answer is this: if you clicked "I agree" to anything, you're technically bound by it, so long as it is legally enforceable in your state. If the agreement said they were going to charge you, it's not their responsibility to track you down and remind you of it; you've already agreed once. If however, they sent you an e-mail saying that they were going to charge you for it after you agreed to something else that was free, that's technically credit card fraud.
That said, the slightly longer answer is good news: So long as you catch a given charge early enough, most disputes will probably be in your favor. This will, of course, depend on your bank. But I've rarely had problems, and I've never had to pay an unauthorized charge in the end.
The exact policy will vary from bank to bank and credit card to credit card. The general rule is that you can file a dispute with them for any charge within sixty days of the charge; NOT sixty days from the product and/or service. This includes electronic funds transfers and other debits, and electronically processed checks, check-by-phone, etc. if it's a bank... though not for checks with your signature on them. Some financial institutions will allow longer time-frames for some or all types of charges. Some make distinctions between blatant fraud, and "normal" situations like these, where a vendor charges for a product or service that does not live up to what was promised.
Microsoft's policies may very well be that they won't process a refund after sixty days. However, it's not like they can prove you've actually used it, since your X-box has been out of commission since before that time. This will only matter later, if they dispute your dispute. Odds are, they won't, since they won't have a signature on file... unless you were foolish enough to mail something into them. ;-) As far as your bank/credit card company is concerned, you've got until February 26th (i.e. 60 days after the CHARGE) or later, depending on their policies. Check it out. Remember, it's the SIGNATURE that matters most, and you can sometimes get out of it even then. You just have to demonstrate that you received less than you were promised for the charge, something that isn't that difficult in the litigious society that we live in.
File the dispute, and you should be fine. From a social engineering perspective, I have found it useful to detail this process to the customer service rep you're speaking with, explaining that you will simply file a dispute with your bank and you'll get your money back anyway, in addition to causing their credit-card processor to charge them extra fees for the chargeback. Show them that it would just be less trouble for everyone involved if they will simply issue a refund. If you are clearly knowledgeable and they also understand the situation, they often back down... because they know that it's true and will only cost them more. But be nice about it. If you are to firm, you'll just piss them off and they make you go through it anyway, just to make your life harder. Because they also know that it's not costing THEM more; just the company.
Here's your opportunity to gouge the company everyone's always complaining about, on their own ground: legally. ;-)
That's not really fair. If you read the article carefully, they "renewed" his account on November 15th, but didn't actually apply the charge to his credit card until December 26th. Given that could have been the first day of his billing cycle, the company may not have mailed out his statement until January 26th, which he may have just gotten this week. At the beginning of the article he says "recently" as in maybe he stewed over this for a week or two and decided to post on /.
Use a single use credit card number, such as Private Payments from American Express. That, or buy a Webcertificate for exactly the amount of the first year's subscription. I've found these useful for buying services that I only want once, but either won't sell the service or charge an outrageous fee for not using recurring billing.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
This is the perfect situation for one time use numbers (the one I personally use is MBNA ShopSafe). If it is a $19.99 annual fee (I have no idea what it is, I use PS2 and PC games), then you create a credit card with a spending limit of $20 (and 11 month expiration). They cannot charge you more than that. Then, one of two things happens. (1) After 11 of the 12 months they call you with a friendly reminder that your card expires soon - so you either cancel then or go and increase spending limit and expiration of fake credit card. (2) After 12 months, they try to charge to a now expired card, fail, and either contact you or your service is just shut off. If you wanted the service back, call them up and give them a new card number. :)
- RR
I should put something clever here. Maybe someday.
Microsoft does make it tough to cancel, often requiring passwords you may have forgotten, or specifically notifying them at least 60 days before renewal,
I make it easy on myself - I just send the company a written letter that they stop service and send it via certified mail.
The small change of certified mail is worth not having to deal with some kid on the phone for 30 mins.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Microsoft doesn't require a notice in writing delivered by snail mail for a cancellation, though. It's not underhanded; it's what he agreed to. I agree that it's shitty, but he needs to learn to read agreements that he makes himself subject to. Those were the terms, he said "yes", and now he's upset that he's being held to them.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
Any frustration and/or anger he is feeling now should be directed at himself for failing to fully understand his responsibilities when he entered into a business contract with Microsoft.
There is need to involve the court system in this. It would be just another useless lawsuit tying up an already overstressed and abused court system.
Gettng a chargeback from the CC company for this would be at best underhanded and at worst immoral or fraudulent. He was not charged for something he didn't approve. He was charged for something he forgot about. Chargebacks are not a refund for stupidity. The more people abuse chargebacks the less chance the CC companies will grant them to people with valid complaints. Besides, like another poster said, the second he calls the CC company he will be asked, "Was this for a subscription service you agreed to?" The CC companies are already sick to death of people buying a month's pr0n subscription online and then calling 30 days later trying to get their money back for those "obviously fraudulent" charges that appeared on their bills.
The only respectable thing for the original poster to do is to admit to himself he forgot to cancel the account, pay the $50 and learn a lesson from this.
From the company's point of view:
1) If they remind you, it cost postage, plus all the costs associated with a massive mailing like that every month or so.
2) If they remind you, and you're not using it, you'll remember to cancel, and they lose income.
3) Many services default to this for convenience (like the paper -- or other monthly bills, like an ISP -- and often this benefits the customer as well).
4) Why would the company want to work harder to keep your business? I know you'd like them to, but they've got you, they've got your business, why should they remind you to stop paying them or give you a reason to consider terminating?
I don't care much for it either, but on the other hand, I'm glad my beer-of-the-month club, my isp, my gym, and some other services auto-renew, otherwise I'd have a bunch of extra bills to remember each month. It's the way almost every service works. You can deal with it or you can whine.
Yes, there are people who forget. And many of them, after getting nailed once, will remember in the future. If you sign ANY kind of legal agreement, it is your (generic your, I'm not attacking you personally) responsibility to a) remember the terms of the agreement, b) abide by them, c) remember your responsibilities. Maybe you don't deserve a fee for forgetting, but considering that this will be enough of a frustration he will likely remember it and not do it again, $50 is a cheap price to pay for a recent college grad to learn a lesson in life, as opposed to hundereds for a single 3 hour class.
Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but it could have been a lot more and this may remind him to cancel a higher cost subscription in the future. I have little sypmathy for anyone who subscribes for a service, doesn't read the ToS (especially when the company has a rep like MS does), and later complains that he got screwed because the company did what they said they'd do in the first place.
This guy didn't update his email (they aren't responsible for that) and forgot about the contract he mutual agreed with (they have no obligation to assist him in remembering the details). The only thing you could slightly say MS needs to defend is the time period for charging his account but that's hardly the burden of proof that makes or breaks this case.
The whole concept of an "auto-renewing" system even being considered acceptable just really burns me up. There's no good reason for companies not being forced to re-request a payment once a year. Let the burden be on the company to ensure that the consumer still wants the product, rather than on the consumer to ensure that he doesn't get shafted.
This is why I wish everyone would use smartcards. While theoretically you could build an auto-payment authorization system with one, it isn't just a matter of "company A has your CC# and can charge you whatever they want to charge."
May we never see th
The underhanded thing is charging him past the possible refund date. I don't understand why you people are defending this. Even if you reviewed your CC statement every day and called the minute the charge was posted, you'd still be too late. They guy was careless maybe, but stupid is just being rude. How often does the average slashdotter check their statements?
Correct, he agreed to the TOS. Corrent, he is in the wrong but that charging proceedure, designed to screw over people who 'forgot' to cancel immediately out of another months service, is underhanded. Not illegal... no legal recourse possible... just plain mean.
On another note, have any of you people read what you agreed to in your XBox/PS2/Windows/Garage Door Opener EULA? The EULAs/TOS themselves are underhanded... not illegal (err, maybe) but mean. This is just a guy who got slightly screwed by a rude company and is trying to get his money back.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I recently refunded my Annual renewal. And I was reading on the XBox support page, their calculation for determining your refund level. You can refund any remaining portion of your Annual subscription. At any time. It's simply a prorated refund. The easiest thing to do is call 1-800-4MY-XBOX (North America) and get them to process the remainder back to your card.
My credit card company, MBNA, has a system where you can generate a temporary credit card number, and assign a limit and expiration date to it. I try and use it for any "auto-renewing" system. So if I find a service I want to use for say $20 a year, I'll generate a CC# with a $20 limit, and an expiration date of next week. Then, a year later I have to manually renew with a new valid CC#, or they don't get any more of my money. Check if your credit card company has something like this.
From MS' point of view you've had your "new" account for nearly 3 months now. That's 1/4 of the duration of the billing period. For all they know you've been playing the hell out of xbox live in the last 3 months.
ALthough i feel sorry for your situation, there certainly isnt a clause in their contract that says "XBox Live, buy 12 months get 3 months free".
At the end of the day you've had access to their service for 3 months, and although i'd support the refund pro-rata, you can't possibly justify being refunded for the time you've already had access (whether you used it or not is hardly their fault).
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!